


Serpent's Survival

by BeastOfTheSea



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2012-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-20 22:03:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/590130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeastOfTheSea/pseuds/BeastOfTheSea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>/AU/ “I know you decide if I live or die. But that’s also deciding if you live or die. And – that’s not much of a choice for you, is it?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Serpent's Survival

**Author's Note:**

> **Generic Harry Potter disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
> 
> **Specific Notes:** I wrote this after reading YumeNoTsuzuki’s  The Other Half, so I credit that for inspiration. This was originally a flashback in a longer oneshot, but this was the only good part, so I discarded the rest and kept this.

“You can’t kill me.”

He laughed, flicking a dismissive gaze towards the white-faced, yet determined, boy. What a childish little Gryffindor. “Oh, do you think so, Potter?”

“I do,” said the boy, his hands clenching into fists by his sides. He stood a bit straighter, raising his chin.

He made a great show of looking about the Chamber. “Really, now? Because I don’t see a second mother willing to die for you.”

The boy didn’t even flinch. “I’m not saying it’s impossible for you to kill me,” he said quietly. “But have you thought about what’s going to happen to you when you kill me and Ginny, and leave this place, Riddle? Have you thought at all what will happen when you no longer have anyone to hide behind, and you show yourself openly at Hogwarts?”

His smile faltered.

“Once _Dumbledore_ hears the news, and comes rushing back to Hogwarts, Board of Governors be d– be d– be –” He showed his childishness once more as he stumbled over the word, but at last managed – “be _damned_?” He cocked his head. “Have you thought about what’s going to happen to you then, Riddle?”

He was only a piece of the greater whole. His own existence didn’t really matter in the long run – So long as even one of the other (by now) five remained intact, he was redundant. In fact, of all the planned parts, he was the one best used as a weapon, the one most likely to be destroyed in the service of the greater cause, the one already, in some corner of his mind, already given up for lost –

That was what he – or rather, his source – had firmly believed at the time of his creation. That should have been – _was_ the deepest truth of his existence. That was what he ought to throw in the boy’s face…

But he couldn’t make the words come. “I’m just a memory,” he forced himself to say, submerging his own thoughts beneath the effort it took him to throw himself fully into the lie. “A memory made solid, but a memory nonetheless – and who misses a forgotten memory?” He gave an affable laugh, as convincing – and false – as the smiles he had once thrown at every professor save Dumbledore.

The boy’s expression did not change. “You’re a memory,” he said quietly, “but you’re a memory that thinks, and wants, and has a will of its own. And my memory of the wizard you’ll become –” The boy’s face twisted briefly in disgust, but he suppressed it after a moment – “is that, so long as there’s any thought left in his head, any willpower left in his body, and anything left to want after both of those are gone – is he doesn’t want to die. No matter how little’s left of him, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how terrible his existence – He’d always prefer that to death.” The boy looked at him over those blocky spectacles in a manner disgustingly reminiscent of Dumbledore. “And I can’t imagine you’re so different.”

He resisted the urge to stride over and see if this form was solid enough yet to choke every last squelching bit of life out of the insolent runt’s body – Because he was right. Damn him, damn him to an eternity of pain beyond the greatest Cruciatus, he was right.

“And you think you have a better offer, do you, Potter?” he sneered, drilling his spectral gaze into the boy. “Tell me. What do you gain?" 

The boy abruptly gave a hysterical laugh.

“It’s not obvious?” he asked, spreading his hands. “Like I said, I’m not denying you could easily kill me. Or Ginny.” He flinched as he said the girl’s name, and looked down at her, giving a sad shake of his head. “For all I know,” he added in a voice so quiet it could barely be heard, “she’s already dead.” She wasn’t, but let Potter suffer a bit. “I’m not stupid, you know,” he continued, raising his voice again. “I know you decide if I – if either I or Ginny – live or die.

“But that’s also deciding if you live or die. And – that’s not much of a choice for you, is it?” He gave a damnably casual shrug. “So – let’s be honest. Only reason Dumbledore wouldn’t get rid of you himself is if somebody’d already gotten rid of you.”

_And who would that be? Father Christmas?_ But he bit back the sarcastic comment and let the boy continue. The boy’s confidence was slipping; he knew he was treading on unsteady ground. “And, well –” Here the boy, obviously despite his better judgment, made a great show of looking about the Chamber. “I don’t see anyone around here but me.”

“So, in exchange for your life, you plan to fake my destruction,” he said curtly. It gave him the satisfaction of seeing the boy caught totally off-guard, gawking dumbly at him; he had interrupted the boy’s little script, it seemed. Well, good. Let the boy be reminded which one of them was the Heir of Slytherin and which one of them, no matter how cunning, was a mere second-year Gryffindor. “I assume you plan to smuggle me out, so it’s worth my while – but pray tell, Potter, why shouldn’t I expect you to betray me and turn me into Dumbledore the moment you’re no longer in mortal danger?”

To his surprise, that hadn’t actually seemed to have crossed the boy’s mind. Well, well. He was an honorable little Gryffindor after all. “I – but I’d owe you my life,” the boy said in surprise. “I couldn’t just turn right around and–”

“Ah… a Life Debt, Potter?”

“Er – yes, I’d be in debt to you for my life,” the boy said uncertainly, and he felt a lesser twinge of surprise. So the boy really _had_ intended to hold to his devil’s bargain for no other reason than honor? How refreshingly principled… and how very non-Slytherin. But it was interesting to see how the other three-quarters lived.

“Aren’t you a noble one,” he commented dryly. “Let’s just say, for the moment, that there are ways to bind you to this deal, and leave it at that.”

“And are there ways to bind you?”

He blinked. “What?”

“I’ll agree to those terms if you agree to those terms,” the boy said. “I don’t trust you any more than you trust me. Maybe even less, Riddle. If we’re both magically bound –” He shrugged. “I’d reckon it’s better than the alternative.” The boy cast another glance at Ginny – and, while the boy was temporarily distracted by melancholy, he considered his options.

If he rejected the boy’s offer – he would kill him, of course, and drain the last of the girl’s life. Unfortunately, that led to the scenario the boy had predicted, and the small chance that he could evade that fate was not worth the overwhelming possibility of his end at Dumbledore’s hands.

If he tried to possess the girl and attack the boy – given the boy’s desire to live, he couldn’t rule out the possibility that the boy would kill the girl, leaving him without an energy source and without a host. He hadn’t been close enough to the boy to make him a valid possession target, so he would be stranded until rescuers – Dumbledore likely amongst them – managed to force the wards on the Chamber…  whereupon either the boy pointed to the diary and told them everything, or the boy had died of starvation or injuries from the struggle, and the picturesque scene of two child-corpses and one innocuous-looking diary told them everything they needed to know.

The best-case scenario, that the girl survived and the boy died, still left him in mortal peril. Killing the girl reduced to the first case. Continuing to possess the girl gave him temporary shelter, but sole survivors of tragic encounters with Dark magic were regarded with the utmost suspicion. A third of the time they were the Dark wizard or witch, a third of the time they willingly or unwillingly served the Dark wizard or witch, and a third of the time they were relatively blameless but carried some nasty side effect of the Dark magic with them – if you believed Defense teachers and textbooks, at least. And he was certain some spell would detect his presence once the Aurors (or Dumbledore) bothered to check, so – Again, it reduced to the first case.

He could think of other options, but they were all variants on those two themes.

That left… _Confound_ it.

Hmph. If he negotiated well, he could make it through this inconvenience and come out the other end alive, solid, and not about to perish at the end of Dumbledore’s wand. Besides, it wasn’t truly a loss or a compromise. He had brought himself to this point by acting like a _Gryffindor_ – not thinking through his plans to their less-than-pleasant ends, heedless of what would occur after he accomplished his objective – and it was through his stupidity, not Dumbledore or Potter’s intellect, that he found himself compelled to make this deal. It was not humiliation at another’s hands, only a bit of – discipline he had to impose upon himself.

Relaxing as he came to view the matter properly, he smiled at the boy. “Very well, then,” he said. “We agree on the _concept_ of this plan, so - shall we work out the details?”

**Author's Note:**

>  **Note:** To canon-Harry fans, sorry for the OOCness, but it was literally the premise of this little AU. To fans of a darker Harry, sorry for Harry’s awkwardness, but I was trying to keep him as close to canon as I could manage while still holding to the AU. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
